


Interlude #1

by DayenuRose



Series: Snapshots or Dick/Babs Week 2018 [3]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Birds of Prey (Comic), Nightwing (Comics), Titans (Comics)
Genre: Babysitting, Children, Dick/Babs week 2018, F/M, Interlude, Memories, photo albums
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 13:16:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16954755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DayenuRose/pseuds/DayenuRose
Summary: When Dick and Babs get home from a date night, they find their daughter's babysitter, Lian Harper, perusing one of their photo albums. Lian finds familiar faces in some of the pictures and wants to the story behind one of the snapshots.





	Interlude #1

Babs and Dick tried to enter the house as quietly as possible, but a date night out was a rare thing these days and would likely be even rarer after the twins were born. Barring a breakout from Arkham, the Bat-family had arranged for the couple to have the night off. Tim had agreed to take over Oracle duties until the next evening and Bruce had arranged the schedule so Dick wouldn’t need to patrol. 

Needless to say, they were a bit giddy by the unprecedented freedom and felt a bit like teenagers sneaking back in after patrol. Babs stopped just over the threshold and began to unwind her scarf. Dick stumbled over Babs as he tried to scootch her forward so he could shut the door against the cold. The wheels of her chair dripped the slushy remnants of snow on the hardwood floor and for the moment she didn’t care. She wrapped an arm around Dick and pulled him in for a kiss. His hands were entangled in her hair. For a moment, it felt as though they could stay like this forever.

“Hi, Uncle Dick, Aunt Babs,” Lian Harper whispered. She stood in the doorway of the living room and averted her eyes. 

Babs pushed Dick away, snagging his scarf in the progress, keeping him from going too far. His fingers caught in her hair eliciting a small squeal from her. 

“Sorry Lian.” Babs blushed. She couldn’t believe they’d been caught making out like teenagers in the foyer. 

The actual teenager rolled her eyes. “It’s fine. It’s not like I’ve never seen Dinah and Ollie making out. But, unless you want to wake Mary up—again—you might want to whisper.”

“Yes’m.” Dick offered a smart salute and a cheeky grin.

Lian just sighed. “I’ll be in the living room.” 

“We should probably head in,” Babs whispered as she shrugged out of her winter coat and handed it to her husband. 

Dick nodded, “I want to check on Mary before we head to bed.” 

“Let’s check in with Lian first, then Mary.” Babs headed for the living room. “Don’t forget Lian’s spending the night in the guest room. Roy will be around to pick her up in the morning.”

He grabbed a towel from the closet and without comment mopped up the mess on the floor. “I’ll be there in a moment. Would you like some tea?”  

“Sounds lovely. Thank you.” She pressed a kiss to the top of his head. 

An old black and white movie played on the tv. The volume was turned so low that it could scarcely be heard across the room. The subtitles flickering across the bottom of the screen were largely ignored as Lian flipped through a green binder. 

“What do you have there? Homework?” Babs asked as she pulled up beside Lian.

“No. Um, it’s yours. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be nosy.” Lian’s cheeks flushed and she shifted the binder over to an end table. 

“Don’t worry about it. They’re meant to be looked at. There’s nothing up here that any civilian can’t see. And you’re definitely not a stranger—you’re family.” Babs recognised the binder as one of the photo albums that had been on the shelf. Immediately, she concluded what had happened, since lately similar incidents happened about a dozen times a day. “Let me guess Mary pulled all the albums off the shelf.” 

Lian nodded. “It took me forever to figure out what she was looking for. She wouldn’t let me put them away until...”

“Until you found her baby album,” Dick finished the thought as he entered the room with three teas. “Hope peppermint is okay.” 

“Yes.” Lian picked up a teacup and sipped the tea.

Babs held hers, allowing the heat to warm her fingers. “I should have told you before we left. Mary’s been obsessed with her baby album lately. I think it might have something to do with her finally realising that there’s going to be new babies in the house soon.” She cocked her head to the side for a moment as a thought struck her. She turned to her husband. “Uh, do you remember where Mary last had her album?”

Dick shook his head. He’d pulled up a chair next to Babs. 

“Her bedroom,” Lian supplied. “It’s still there if you’re looking for it in the morning.”

“Right. Thanks.” Babs sipped her tea. 

Dick picked up the album. He’d helped Babs put this one together. They’d scrounged up all the pictures they could find of their teams out of uniform. “Did you find something interesting in the albums?”

“Yeah. When I was putting them away, I noticed a picture of Dad.” 

“Which one did you find?” Babs handed the album back to Lian. 

She flipped through the pages trying to find the photo again. “I don’t often see pictures of Dad and his friends—in or out of uniform. He looked so young here.” 

“We were all young once.” Dick ran a hand through his hair as though that could hide the few grey strands starting to appear among his dark hair. 

“Here it is,” Lian turned the album and pointed at a snapshot of Roy and Dick, Barbara and Dinah. The questions started to bubble out of her in a rapid stream of consciousness. “Is that really Dinah? Why were the four of you together? That’s so weird...” 

“Yes, that’s Dinah, she changed her style a few times since then.” Dick paused as he studied the picture. “And you must have been around two when this photo was taken so it wasn’t _that_ long ago.”

“Twelve years,” Babs muttered doing the math. 

Dick leaned his head against Babs’ shoulder. “Do you remember that evening?” 

“How could I forget? We were so deep in denial...” Babs grinned and squeezed her husband’s hand. 

“Wait. Are you two going to get all mushy again? Should I just head down to bed...”

“We’ll behave. Promise.” Babs closed her eyes and sipped the tea. 

“All right then, I want to know how the four of you ended up at dinner. I mean, if I didn’t know better, I’d say it looks like a double date. Or, maybe one and two half dates? I mean, cause the idea of Dad and Dinah as a couple...ewww....” 

Dick laughed out loud before a glare from Babs reminded him of their sleeping four year old. He immediately stopped and took a deep breath before continuing. “You’re not the only one who thought that. The waitress kept insisting that we were couples.” 

“But, you are. You’re like the most steady couple I know.” Lian frowned as she studied Dick and Babs. She couldn’t imagine them as anything but a couple. She’d seen them work as a team in an out of uniform. Whenever they were in the same room, they always seemed to be touching. When Lian thought of true love and perfect couples and all that mush, Uncle Dick and Aunt Babs were her ideal. They had what she hoped to have one day. 

“We weren’t back then. Our lives kept driving us in separate directions and we can both be rather stubborn. We’d been together and apart several times by that point in our lives, and I think we were contemplating that maybe we were simply meant to be good friends.” Babs ran her fingers over the picture. She smiled at the memories. When that night was over, Dinah had taken her aside and convinced Babs to consider how she truly felt about Dick. Dinah pointed out that she had to make similar decision concerning how she felt about Oliver. So, you could say that night was the start of things that came later. “But, anyways, that’s not the story you asked for, was it? The night that photo was taken, I had planned a ladies night with the Birds of Prey. Back when the core team consisted of Dinah and Helena.”

“And, coincidently, I’d made plans to hang out with Roy on the same night.” Dick set his empty teacup back on the tray and stretched. 

“Wait. If you both had separate plans...how did you end up together? What happened?” Lian glanced between the couple. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and perched on the edge of the couch. There would be no sending her to bed before the story was finished. She was hooked. 

“Relax Lian,” Babs grinned tossed an afghan to the girl. She grabbed another for herself and draped it over her shoulders. “Gotham might be a big city, but it’s not so big that people who grew up together aren’t going to find themselves circling the same locations out of habit.”

“Don’t spoil the story.” Dick snagged a corner of Babs’ blanket and pulled it over his shoulders so they were forced to snuggle closely together if they wanted to keep sharing. He leaned against Babs and allowed the wave of memory and nostalgia to take him back in time as he prepared to tell the story. “Now, you wanted to know how we all ended up together. It started when I realised I hadn’t seen Roy for a while....”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know that Lian never had the opportunity to grow up in the comics. Since I'm taking liberties in creating a future (and family) for Dick and Babs, I decided that Lian could have a future in my story too.


End file.
